The Summation of All Things in Christ

Studies in Ephesians with a Local Church Emphasis

Lesson 51 : The ‘Beautifully Complex’ Wisdom of God  (3:10)

These churches are organized assemblies of the Lord’s people  –  Each ecclesia pictures the eternal ecclesia to come  –  The existence of the ecclesia itself is God ‘making known’ His wisdom: it is not what we do but who we are!  –  Paul cannot here be referring to an universal-invisible church  –  The Perpetuity of the Assemblies, Congregations Worshiping the Lord, by B. H. Carroll  –  Both the ecclesia and the redemption of the universe is to glorify God  –  The ‘beautifully complex’ wisdom of God  –  ‘Hapax legomenon’  –  The ‘manifold wisdom of God’ shown in the Lord bringing together the Jews and Gentiles within a single assembled body  –  More than merely ‘great’ wisdom  –  Do we stand in awe at the wisdom of God?  –  The church was a revolutionary new concept  –  Practical applications